The Austrian data protection authority (in German Datenschutzbehörde) is an independent governmental authority charged with data protection. The data protection authority is the Austrian supervisory authority for data protection, the equivalent of a national data protection commissioner in other countries.

The data protection authority has replaced the data protection commission, which held this position until 31 December 2013.

Austria was one of the first European states with a data protection authority, the Data Protection Commission. It was created with the first Data Protection Act, BGBl. No. 565/1978. The EU Data Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC was a further measure to harmonise data protection all across Europe. In Austria, this guideline was implemented by the Data Protection Act 2000 (DSG 2000), BGBl. I No. 165/1999.

The data protection authority is to be consulted prior to the issuance of federal laws, which directly concern essential questions of data protection, as well as federal ordinances issued on the basis of this federal law or directly related to other essential questions of data protection (§ 37 para 4 DSG 2000).

The data protection authority provides information on proceedings before the data protection authority.

International data traffic or data export is the transfer of personal data to foreign countries. Depending on the facts, the approval of the data protection authority may be required.